


Immemorial

by kuonji



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Character Development, Death & Resurrection, Episode Related, Friendship, Gen, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-21 17:37:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7397044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuonji/pseuds/kuonji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"It's for you," Jack said simply. "We've been holding onto it for you the last few days." He offered the precisely creased United States flag to the archaeologist.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immemorial

**Author's Note:**

> Orig. Posted 2008.04.02
> 
> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/17365.html>

When Daniel came back, Jack was the first to show up to help him settle back into his apartment. He figured it was only fair.

"I can't believe you guys cleaned out my apartment," Daniel said, for about the twentieth time. He turned in a circle amid his barren former domicile, his expression woeful. One long-fingered hand was dug into his thick, blond-brown hair, seemingly in an effort to suppress his frustration at a life recently swept clean.

"Well, we sort of thought you were dead," Jack defended, keeping his tone mild. It still felt weird to say it. His memories remained a contradictory jumble on that score, no matter what he knew to be true.

"But it's just so... so... Oh my god, they even _vacuumed_!"

Looking down, Jack noticed the neat rows in the off-white carpet. "Huh," he commented. _Excellence In All We Do_.

Before Daniel could go into any more spasms, a knock came at the door. "It's open!" Daniel shouted down the hall, and the remaining two members of his team made their appearance.

"Wow," Carter said, taking in the view. Apart from the tall piles of boxes stacked near the entryway, the apartment was pristine. This was the first time any of them had been here since it'd been packed away.

Daniel had been 'dead', and the rest of them had been kind of busy figuring out that they'd been brainwashed by an alien.

"O'Neill." Teal'c held out a wrapped bundle.

"Thanks, T." Jack squinted at the alien even as he took the bundle and removed the fabric covering. Teal'c's solemn and stoic routine was currently somewhat marred by his fascinatingly ugly fedora. Jack shrugged it mentally away. Far be it for him to tell the Jaffa how to dress himself.

"What's that?" Daniel asked with bright interest, his curiosity evidently overcoming his melancholy.

"It's for you," Jack said simply. "We've been holding onto it for you the last few days." He offered the precisely creased United States flag to the archaeologist.

Daniel took it, looking confused. "What's, um... What is this?"

"It's from your memorial service," Carter supplied. Her spine automatically straightened, and her tone took on a more formal cadence as she added, "It represents your great service to our country."

Daniel's mouth gaped open. A flush rose up from his neck, and he shook his head slowly. With a surprisingly vehement move, he shoved the flag back into Jack's arms. "I shouldn't keep this. Geez. I couldn't... Isn't it kind of morbid, anyway?"

"Well, what did you want to do with it instead?" Jack asked, a little put out at Daniel's reaction.

"Can't we, I don't know, give it back or something?"

Jack stared, honestly horrified as his Air Force senses leapt to the fore. He exchanged an exasperated look with his 2IC before saying, "You want to give some poor guy's widow or mother a _used_ flag?"

Daniel winced. "Okay, when you put it that way..." He gestured with one hand, as if trying to express apology, or to defend against a blow.

Rolling his eyes, Jack seized Daniel's raised hand and placed the flag on it. "Just keep it. Maybe it'll bring you luck."

Daniel looked thoroughly unconvinced, but he took it.

***

Four years later, when Jack went to clean out Daniel's apartment (again), he found the flag, still neatly folded. It'd been wrapped in a cloth and tucked away into one of Daniel's artifact trunks. He wondered whether Daniel had put it there to keep it safe, or to bury it out of sight and out of mind.

Jack wrestled with how to dispatch this particular piece of Jackson Memorabilia. He didn't want to pack it away. He couldn't, of course, give it back to the color guard.

He smiled as he wondered if Daniel, after five years side by side with U.S. officers -- and after gaining much more confidence in his own worth -- would have made such a suggestion now.

In the end, Jack took it home with him. Carter had the journals. Teal'c had the board game. Each of them had a bit of Daniel to remember him by, while he was off flitting around, allegedly figuring out the mysteries of the universe.

***

A year after that, after Daniel dropped back into everyone's lives, Jack gave the flag back to him. He wasn't sure yet how Daniel would react, whether he would even recognize the thing, or the significance of it. Nobody was certain yet if they had brought back the Daniel Jackson that everyone knew, or just a decreased (if seemingly perfect) facsimile.

Jack didn't feel encouraged when Daniel's thick eyebrows knit up in that visibly perplexed expression that seemed glued to his face recently. Daniel ran a finger across the folded flag like it had something written on its small white stars.

"Hey, I... I think I remember this," he said, finally. He looked up and smiled. "We had sushi for dinner, didn't we?"

And just like that, Daniel was back.

***

So, really, Jack thought it was kind of funny when Daniel came back from the dead (again) another year later, and Jack had the chance to wrap him up in a different, though no less significant, emblem of what they all fought for. It seemed to be a herald of normality restored.

Amid Bra'tac's exuberant cackles of glee and Carter's somewhat more restrained humor, Jack murmured to the man next to him, "Welcome back. Stay a while this time, will ya?"

It made him feel pretty good when Daniel replied, "Oh, are you kidding? Definitely."

  
END.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:  
>      [20/20](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/13801.html) (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji  
>      [Not That Big A Deal, Really (the Small Annoyances remix)](http://community.livejournal.com/gateverse_remix/21141.html) (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji  
>      [Dreams](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/2460.html) (Stargate Atlantis), by kuonji  
> 


End file.
